Jason Wilcox Transfer Thread - Who is he and what does he do?

[Grande]

All right, so I guess we can all acknowledge that there are real official rumours about this possible transfer, even the Southampton manager has spoken hearttremblingly about it publically.

I’m curious as to wether anyone knows anything about what he’s supposed to be doing bar wearing shorts, breaking balloons and putting out cones, and what he’s done so far post his illustrious playing carreer at Blackburn (league winner 94/95), Leeds (a pity with that Ridsdale stuff) and Leicester pre Richard III comeback. All I know is that he has been coach at different academy levels at Man City (won a league and lost to FA Youth cup finals, methinks), and then a few years as Head of Academy at the same club, before he was head hunted to be DoF for the mighty Southampton a year ago.

Oh, and he has a black belt in judo and writes for The Lancashire Telegraph.

https://amp.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/15/manchester-united-ineos-southampton-jason-wilcox

 

[golden_blunder]

Gonna be lacing up for our right wing. 4D move by SJR

 

[simonhch]

I think you listed everything he does. Highly rated by all it seems.

 

[Grande]

I think you listed everything he does. Highly rated by all it seems.

What kind of a fan forum is this when ‘Eden Hazard - it’s time to enjoy life drinking beers’ engenders more traffic than a muppetastic hotbit like a potential new assistant DoF dangling in the air?

 

[Brophs]

Gonna be lacing up for our right wing. 4D move by SJR

Same old. Playing a left winger on the right.

 

[Chairman Steve]

I believe the best way to describe him is he’s a youth player development specialist. He could unearth and develop some kids who go on to be good enough for the first team and if not, he assists in finding clubs to send them on loan too and eventually sell on for a tidy sum... something we’ve been very shite at under the Glazer/Woodward stewardship.

If you just hung on in there in terms of first team performance for half a dozen games, Woodward would hand you a 5 year contract for £80k a week on the fecking spot and tell the manager to make it work.

 

[Red00012]

Probably better than Rashford . Decent signing

 

[Grande]

I believe the best way to describe him is he’s a youth player development specialist. He could unearth and develop some kids who go on to be good enough for the first team and if not, he assists in finding clubs to send them on loan too and eventually sell on for a tidy sum... something we’ve been very shite at under the Glazer/Woodward stewardship.

If you just hung on in there in terms of first team performance for half a dozen games, Woodward would hand you a 5 year contract for £80k a week on the fecking spot and tell the manager to make it work.

He has been doing much the same work that Nicky Cox has (Cox out?). Then again, Southampton wanted him as a DoF, and Russell Martin there (the manager) seems very pleased with the support he’s had. Then again (again), managers often say that when they’re allowed to do whatever they want.

Same old. Playing a left winger on the right.

Is he Labour?

Probably better than Rashford . Decent signing

Rashford as assistant DoF … now you’re onto something!

 

[Josh 76]

Probably better than Rashford . Decent signing

He was definitely more consistent than Rashford in his playing days!

 

[Adnan]

All right, so I guess we can all acknowledge that there are real official rumours about this possible transfer, even the Southampton manager has spoken hearttremblingly about it publically.

I’m curious as to wether anyone knows anything about what he’s supposed to be doing bar wearing shorts, breaking balloons and putting out cones, and what he’s done so far post his illustrious playing carreer at Blackburn (league winner 94/95), Leeds (a pity with that Ridsdale stuff) and Leicester pre Richard III comeback. All I know is that he has been coach at different academy levels at Man City (won a league and lost to FA Youth cup finals, methinks), and then a few years as Head of Academy at the same club, before he was head hunted to be DoF for the mighty Southampton a year ago.

Oh, and he has a black belt in judo and writes for The Lancashire Telegraph.

https://amp.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/15/manchester-united-ineos-southampton-jason-wilcox

After he retired from playing football he took up a job with Radio Lancashire where he was a commentator on football matches. And me being originally from the greater Manchester area used to listen to the radio commentary at times. He was then offered a job as a coach in the City academy by Brian Marwood who was City's Sporting director at the time. And from there he was promoted from being the Head coach of the under 18s to being the academy director in the span of of about 5 years. The City owners were funding all departments of the club including the academy, which I feel made the biggest difference. The financial resources City had in comparison to the competition was probably only rivalled by Chelsea, so they were always going to entice the best talents to the club and also had invested a considerable amount of money into developing the facilities at the club to a world class standard.

But in his years at City he must've gained valuable experience and having him around will likely be a benefit for our new CEO Omar Berrarda who is said to be the one who has pushed to bring him to the club. And having people who have worked together previously can only be a benefit to a new group of people who will look to form a strong power base.

 

[Rozay]

Has a mean left-foot and along with Steve Guppy, is in contention for an England call-up to solve their left-wing problem.

 

[Trophy Room]

Can't kick a ball on youtube.

 

[Grande]

After he retired from playing football he took up a job with Radio Lancashire where he was a commentator on football matches. And me being originally from the greater Manchester area used to listen to the radio commentary at times. He was then offered a job as a coach in the City academy by Brian Marwood who was City's Sporting director at the time. And from there he was promoted from being the Head coach of the under 18s to being the academy director in the span of of about 5 years. The City owners were funding all departments of the club including the academy, which I feel made the biggest difference. The financial resources City had in comparison to the competition was probably only rivalled by Chelsea, so they were always going to entice the best talents to the club and also had invested a considerable amount of money into developing the facilities at the club to a world class standard.

But in his years at City he must've gained valuable experience and having him around will likely be a benefit for our new CEO Omar Berrarda who is said to be the one who has pushed to bring him to the club. And having people who have worked together previously can only be a benefit to a new group of people who will look to form a strong power base.

Thanks. Should think Berrada knows what he is good for, yea. DoF post at So’ton, that was a steep promotion, wasn’t it? Ir is that normal?

 

[Adnan]

Thanks. Should think Berrada knows what he is good for, yea. DoF post at So’ton, that was a steep promotion, wasn’t it? Ir is that normal?

It's pretty normal for DoF jobs to be offered to be people who have been academy directors previously. In the role of a academy director you're in charge of the development of the coaching, scouting, medical and analytics departments etc at youth/development level. And in such a role you're basically preparing yourself for the role of the Sporting director at first team level. Simon Rolfes who is the current Sporting director at Leverkusen has also been promoted from the academy where he was managing their academy in a similar role as the academy director.

But in the game today, it's imperative to have the support structure at boardroom level to support the people working within the football club to thrive. And having a person like Berrarda as the CEO will potentially provide the right support for the football personnel to thrive like Ashworth and Wilcox etc. And I don't want to jump the gun but im going to do it anyway, and I do think we should see a difference in how proactive we're at signing players with Ratcliffe in charge of the football side of the club in comparison to how the Glazers dragged things out. The excuse that was put out by Joel Glazer was that it required all 6 Glazer siblings to sign off on each big money transfer for the deal to proceed hence things moved slower.

It's not difficult for a big name like Manchester United to entice people like Berrarda when the role was a huge promotion on what he was doing at City. But the Glazers for some strange reason didn't want to do the most basic of things. I just cannot understand their thought process.

 

[TheReligion]

@Adnan you must be excited by all of this?

 

[Adnan]

@Adnan you must be excited by all of this?

I'm very excited mate and what we're seeing is a real power base being created, which doesn't only rely on one person to do everything when it comes to the football side of the club. And when it comes to recruitment, contracts etc, Ashworth will have support from people like Wilcox and Berrarda who is said to be someone who does get involved in negotiations.

But I'm only going to get overly excited when we get to see the back of the Glazers and hopefully they sell up the rest of their shares soon. They've done too much damage to this club.

 

[Grande]

I'm very excited mate and what we're seeing is a real power base being created, which doesn't only rely on one person to do everything when it comes to the football side of the club. And when it comes to recruitment, contracts etc, Ashworth will have support from people like Wilcox and Berrarda who is said to be someone who does get involved in negotiations.

But I'm only going to get overly excited when we get to see the back of the Glazers and hopefully they sell up the rest of their shares soon. They've done too much damage to this club.

19 years of piracy, it will be 20 at least before we get them over board (and off the board).

 

[Redivy]

My bet is he will replace Fletcher as Technical Director.

I would like to see Fletcher take a different role at the club.

 

[Adnan]

My bet is he will replace Fletcher as Technical Director.

I would like to see Fletcher take a different role at the club.

He won't

 

[diarm]

My bet is he will replace Fletcher as Technical Director.

I would like to see Fletcher take a different role at the club.

You think he’s going to give up being Director of Football at Southampton, having been Head of Youth Development at City, to take Fletchers job helping fellas make the step up from the academy and loan spells into the first team?

 

[Ali Dia]

I think you listed everything he does. Highly rated by all it seems.

Where do city keep finding these guys? They have an excellent recruitment processes across the board it seems. Majorly impressive stuff, so much so that I have no doubt they could replace anyone including Pep or Haaland and still stay extremely competitive while they fine tune into the next cycle

 

[Redivy]

You think he’s going to give up being Director of Football at Southampton, having been Head of Youth Development at City, to take Fletchers job helping fellas make the step up from the academy and loan spells into the first team?

Its a senior position at one of the worlds elite clubs. Technical Directors play a role in the strategic future of first team, scouting, has an input into recruitment and is a direct link between the youth academy and first team. At one point we even had Fletcher standing on the sidelines with Rangnick. The role you described is what Nick Cox does, our head of youth development.

I may be wrong, but like I said, its what I think will happen.

 

[Adnan]

Its a senior position at one of the worlds elite clubs. Technical Directors play a role in the strategic future of first team, scouting, has an input into recruitment and is a direct link between the youth academy and first team. At one point we even had Fletcher standing on the sidelines with Rangnick. The role you described is what Nick Cox does, our head of youth development.

I may be wrong, but like I said, its what I think will happen.

Nick Cox manages the academy, and it's not his job to help youth players transition to the first team in the capacity of a coach. And that's what Fletcher is doing as a youth coach and helps integrate youth players into the first team training sessions and the first team itself. It's a minor role, which Ed Woodward mis-titled in 2021 by officially naming him the technical director.

Wilcox will likely take a more senior executive role imo. I don't think he will leave the role of being Southampton's DoF to take up a minor role at United. I do think he will be given the title of the technical director and he will be second in command to Dan Ashworth with the first team football structure.

 

[CallyRed]

Can't believe we are getting all these ex City and Leeds in to fix our club. Games gone Clive.

 

[golden_blunder]

My bet is he will replace Fletcher as Technical Director.

I would like to see Fletcher take a different role at the club.

Fletcher is a technical director in name only. People keep getting hung up on the damn name.

his main role is to oversee the pathways from reserves to first team (and all that entails)
Can’t see Wilcox coming to do that. Maybe head of academy based on his work at city or perhaps head of recruitment.

 

[golden_blunder]

Its a senior position at one of the worlds elite clubs. Technical Directors play a role in the strategic future of first team, scouting, has an input into recruitment and is a direct link between the youth academy and first team. At one point we even had Fletcher standing on the sidelines with Rangnick. The role you described is what Nick Cox does, our head of youth development.

I may be wrong, but like I said, its what I think will happen.

And if you’d been paying attention you’d know why that was. Rangnick could only get 2 second rate coaches to help and Fletcher was asked to be Jonny on the spot and help out. Probably why Rangnick she le out saying that he didn’t know what fletchers role was. Fletcher had to publicly state what he does

 

[Redivy]

And if you’d been paying attention you’d know why that was. Rangnick could only get 2 second rate coaches to help and Fletcher was asked to be Jonny on the spot and help out. Probably why Rangnick she le out saying that he didn’t know what fletchers role was. Fletcher had to publicly state what he does

I don’t see how you landed on that reply from what I said. But regardless what I was saying is Fletchers role wasn’t as minor as was made out because he ended up on the touchline.

But yes as we ALL know, Fletcher isn’t your traditional technical director. But what we don’t know is whether the club will choose to hire a traditional technical director. The reports indicate it’ll be a senior role, that works with Ashworth. So I don’t understand why the notion of him being a technical director would be seen as such a stretch.

I think it’s fairly obvious at this point that the previous regime and the INEOS lot see roles at the club fairly different. But hey that might just be me.

 

[golden_blunder]

I don’t see how you landed on that reply from what I said. But regardless what I was saying is Fletchers role wasn’t as minor as was made out because he ended up on the touchline.

But yes as we ALL know, Fletcher isn’t your traditional technical director. But what we don’t know is whether the club will choose to hire a traditional technical director. The reports indicate it’ll be a senior role, that works with Ashworth. So I don’t understand why the notion of him being a technical director would be seen as such a stretch.

I think it’s fairly obvious at this point that the previous regime and the INEOS lot see roles at the club fairly different. But hey that might just be me.

As I said, at that time Fletcher was asked to help out Rangnick because he only had 2 coaches, who had never worked PL football before. There’s no other reasons, that was it.

Fletcher is NOT a technical director. I said it at the time and multiple times too, he was given a title which blurred the lines for everyone.

so perhaps I wasn’t clear in my last response to you. He won’t take fletchers job because he is NOT a technical director. Wilcox may end up with that title but it will be to do a completely different job to Fletcher

 

[Redivy]

so perhaps I wasn’t clear in my last response to you. He won’t take fletchers job because he is NOT a technical director. Wilcox may end up with that title but it will be to do a completely different job to Fletcher

I’m glad we agree on that then.

 

[Oranges038]

Can't believe we are getting all these ex City and Leeds in to fix our club. Games gone Clive.

It's unbelievable Jeff.